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Eyrún Eyþórsdóttir

Assistant professor in police studies at the University of Akureyri and a former police detective chief inspector at the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police, Iceland. Specialist on police in diverse societies/communities, hate crime and minorities relations to the police.

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Sessions

05-06
12:30
20min
Online education on diversity for police in Iceland
Eyrún Eyþórsdóttir

In 2016, when police education in Iceland was moved to a university level, to the University of Akureyri (UNAK), increased importance was placed on educating police students on diversity. Around same time the Icelandic Police continuous education centre (MSL), which belongs to the Icelandic National Commissioner of the Police, introduced such trainings as well. Ever since, police students take mandatory courses on subjects as diversity, hate crime and human rights at UNAK, and police officers are offered short courses on diversity and hate crime provided by MSL. Due to Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that on-line education is offered to police students in Iceland, more and more students now only take classes online. This paper will discuss what are the pros and cons with teaching online instead of face-to-face interaction about such a delicate subject, as diversity in the context of policing. I will debate questions such as, does online course on diversity deliver knowledge to police students, worse or better, than in a classroom setting and how has online teaching changed the way diversity is addressed in police education? Furthermore, how is it possible to follow up on such trainings in contemporary COVID-19 pandemic when student-teacher personal interaction is impossible? This paper bases partly on survey on police students’ views on diversity, which has been submitted to new police students in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and partly on qualitative research on hate crime victims in Iceland experiences of police in 2019 – 2021.

Training and Education during after the Pandemic Crisis
Training and Education during after the Pandemic Crisis